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<title>The Purple Hatter by panchostokes (badwolfrun)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23953708">The Purple Hatter</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes'>panchostokes (badwolfrun)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MacGyver (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Hurt Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016), Hurt/Comfort, Jack Dalton Whump, mercury poisoning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 14:57:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,923</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23953708</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Something goes wrong after a mission that went too right, and Mac finds himself wrangling a bull while Jack chases leprechauns.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jack Dalton &amp; Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Jack Dalton/Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Purple Hatter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Since I'm having an easier time hurting Jack than Nick lately, here's a fun lil silly thing I whipped up after thinking about that wonderful purple shirt he wears in 1x08, as well as an episode of 911 Lonestar. Couldn't help but make a nod to the lovely TangoCharlie series of Jack Dalton's School of Infinite Wisdom because it's just so amazing, and I recommend you check it out!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I tell ya man, gettin’ all dolled up and having to sit nice for expensive dinners is worth it if it means we get goodies like this wine n’ cheese basket at the end of the night,” Jack drawls as he carries the treasure in his arms, setting it on Mac’s counter before searching his cabinets for two wine glasses. </p><p>“We’re not supposed to accept gifts, Jack,” Mac rolls his eyes over a half smirk. His fingers loosening his tie as he walks backwards from the kitchen, away from the Texan who busies himself in opening the gift wrap while Mac takes a much needed trip to the bathroom. </p><p>“And yet, you let me take it anyway. Which makes you an accomplice.”</p><p>“Fair enough,” Mac calls out. As he washes his hands, he splashes some water on his face, the drips of liquid washing out the stress that had clenched his jaw ever since they entered the banquet hall. He had a feeling he couldn’t shake off all night that something was going to go wrong, but this mission was a blue moon--despite all of the bad vibes swirling in the pit of his stomach that made him pick at the five course meal they were served. They wined, they dined and kept up appearances as long as they needed to without any hiccups, without any bullets, without any threats to their lives or others.</p><p>Without any <em> improvising.  </em></p><p>Mac closes his eyes, breathes a deep sigh of relief as the worries evaporate from his face. Despite his teasing, he’s ready to just sit back, relax and unwind with a bottle of wine, a porch fire, and his best friend by his side. </p><p>“Well, if we get tossed in the slammer for this, I call dibs on top bunk,” Mac smiles as he exits the bathroom, spotting Jack halfway through his first glass and unbuttoning his jacket. Unconsciously, he begins to shed his own suit jacket, his wrists wrestling with through the cuffs as he approaches the kitchen and gets a better view of his friend.  </p><p>Part of him is surprised Jack didn’t fully discard the monkey suit in the few short minutes they’ve been relieved of needing them. He had been complaining in the car of how suffocating the tie was, how the buttons were just bursting at the seams.</p><p>Part of him wonders if Jack finally realized just how good his slimming black jacket, tight purple dress shirt combo makes him look, though judging by the paper sticking out from his pocket, presumably decorated with numbers and lipstick kisses, he thinks Jack might know that anyway.</p><p>Part of him ceases his own stripping of his suit as he notices a dark, damp blotch on Jack’s shirt. Stained red. </p><p>“That’s fine by me, hoss, I’m getting too damn old to shimmy my way up there anyway,” Jack muses as he holds out a glass to Mac. “What’s wrong, fish didn’t sit right with you? You look a little pale.”</p><p>“Jack…” Mac starts, letting his coat fall to the floor, but his suddenly clammy hands remain behind him.</p><p>“I mean if you ask me, something did taste a bit...metallic? Like they didn’t peel all the skin or somethin’...”</p><p><em> “Jack,” </em>Mac’s eyes widen as he draws closer, the spread of the stain expands behind the loose flaps of the jacket. </p><p>“My dad always taught me how to properly skin a fish, maybe those cooks could use a lesson from the prestige school of Jack Dalton’s infinite wisdom--”</p><p>“Jack! You’re bleeding!” Mac cries out, rushing forward to peel away Jack’s jacket, press his fingers against the wound.</p><p>“What?” Jack’s face falls, he looks down, carelessly tossing the crimson wine, it splashes out and falls onto his shirt…</p><p>Causing another <em> wine </em>stain, Mac realizes as Jack’s previously crestfallen “shock” face perks up into a cheeky smile. </p><p>Mac hangs his head, letting out the breath that had inflated his lungs to their maximum, he releases his hands from balling up Jack’s suit, flattens out the fabric before washing his tongue over his lips.</p><p>“You’re cut off, hoss,” Jack giggles as he tips a glass toward Mac before retracting it. He finishes one glass and exchanges it for the bottle as he walks out to the porch while Mac continues to recover from his panic. </p><p>“What’s got you so spooked, not like anything went wrong tonight,” Jack calls behind him as Mac sifts through the selection of cheeses. Maybe he should finally eat something after all. </p><p>“That’s just it, Jack. <em> Nothing went wrong. </em>That doesn’t happen to us. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, and you know I don’t often say--”</p><p>Mac turns around, ready to follow Jack out onto the deck when he hears the dropping of a bottle, the shattering of a glass. </p><p>“--that, Jack!” </p><p>Jack’s walking slowly, like a zombie towards the end of the deck, his hands in front of him, he braces the barrier that keeps him from falling...but he lifts a leg, as if he’s about to climb over.</p><p>Mac stops him before he can do that, pulling him back which is easier said than done, the extra force sends them both stumbling backwards, they trip over each other and Jack falls onto his back, Mac on top of him.</p><p>“What is <em> wrong </em>with you?” Mac huffs, pushing himself up, he shakes Jack’s collar loose in a quick burst of anger as well as to loosen the tie that must be squeezing Jack’s airway so tight he’s getting confused from lack of oxygen.</p><p>“I-I think I saw a leprechaun leaping off the ledge…” Jack mumbles in a low voice. His eyes are crossed, he seems unfocused, searching as he stares blankly at Mac. He points a finger up, brushing through Mac’s hair. “Kinda looked like you.”</p><p>“Alright, I think <em> you’re </em> cut off, now,” Mac chuckles as he un-straddles himself from Jack’s hips. He offers a hand that Jack accepts with his own wheezing chuckle, and he feels bad that the poor guy seemed to have the wind knocked out of him. </p><p>“Maybe you’re right. I think I drank that too fast, my tummy’s whirling and twirling like one of those carny rides.” </p><p>“Maybe it was something you ate?”</p><p>“You’d be feeling it too, wouldn’tja?” Jack shakes his head as they walk towards the fire pit. </p><p>“Nah, I didn’t eat much of anything.”</p><p>“No wonder you’re like a twig! They put any meats in that basket? Surprised you haven’t passed out from being so lightheaded.”</p><p>“Are you sure <em> you’re </em>not lightheaded? You picked apart that basket yourself! Besides, I got some cheese…” Mac points towards the open doorway, half of his body is through the threshold when he turns back again, and Jack is once again numbly stumbling towards the end of the deck.</p><p>Mac drops his cheese plate and runs in front of the walking man, he presses both of his hands against Jack’s chest, which is puffed and primed. He can feel the air <em> seething </em>from the bull’s flaring nostrils, his hands scramble up his chest and grip him on his shoulders, sharp as horns. </p><p>“Jack--stop--you’re--gonna--hurt--yourself!” Mac grunts as Jack shrugs Mac off of him, only for Mac to reattach himself to him, only to shake him off again and while the movement is slow, it’s not halted, and soon Mac’s back is up against the barrier--</p><p>“He’s down there, Mac! Murdoc, he’s done there, I saw his creepy ask running around with the mask!” Jack growls, pushing through Mac to get back to the railing.</p><p>“Jack, Jack, no! He’s in prison, we got him, <em> you </em>put the cuffs on him yourself--”</p><p>“Go make one of yer bottle rockits, go on, <em> get! </em> ” Jack’s accent is as heavy as stone, the veins in his neck flexing as he grabs Mac by the collar of <em> his </em>shirt and tosses him aside. </p><p>Luckily, as Mac recovers from the whiplash, Jack’s suicide mission comes to a halt with a fit of heaves, which produces a large expulsion of vomit over the edge that he was so desperate to fall over. </p><p>Mac gets to his feet and presses a tentative hand to Jack’s back, and another to his chest while Jack begins to sway between his retching gasps for air.</p><p>Maybe the wine was laced with something. </p><p>“We gotta get you to the hospital,” Mac digs a hand out of his pocket for his phone.</p><p>“No hospital!” Jack barks out.</p><p>“I’m, I’m sorry, what was that?” Mac scrunches his face, his fingers on the buttons of his phone.</p><p>“No hospital, y’ain’t takin’ me there,” Jack grumbles as he waves a hand in the air. To Mac’s relief, he turns away from the railing. </p><p>“Oh, now I know you’re <em> really </em>sick,” Mac raises his eyebrows with a bobbing nod of his head. Jack groans as he presses a hand against his stained shirt. “We gotta decontaminate you.” </p><p>“Decontaminate? I didn’t touch nothin’!” </p><p>“The wine, maybe something was in the wine, and it’s stained onto your skin. C’mon, let’s get you to the shower,” Mac guides Jack back into the house, and in his exhaustion, Jack doesn’t put up a fight as Mac ducks underneath one of his arms, carries him along on his shoulder. </p><p>“This is the worst hangover <em> everrrrr </em>,” Jack groans as they stumble through the hallway. “My head’s throbbing like it was hit with a baseball bat and I didn’t even get drunk!” </p><p>Mac manages to push Jack into the bathroom, despite his attempts to grip onto the door frame, but his fingers are so sweaty that his grip isn’t tight enough, he nearly collides with the toilet as he falls to his knees. Mac rings his hands in the air in anguish, one gripping the top of his head as he had almost hurt Jack even more, but Jack didn’t seem to notice, anyway, childishly hanging over the closed toilet seat and playing with the trigger lever.</p><p>“We’ll make up for it next week, big lug, alright? C’mon, let’s get this shirt off of you,” Mac begins to pull off Jack’s suit jacket with one hand, turning on the faucet with the other. He pulls Jack back, leans him against the wall before removing his tie.</p><p>“Noooooo! I look really good in purple!” Jack protests, stamping his foot as Mac starts to unbutton the front of his shirt, exposing his bare chest. </p><p>“Jack--<em> Jack, </em>hold--still!” Mac sputters as Jack starts to flail his arms, pulling his sleeves towards him as Mac tries to pull them off.</p><p>The fabric begins to rip, making his efforts easier as Jack is distracted by his torn shirt and begins to cry hysterically. </p><p>“Looks like it got on your pants too, so c’mon,” Mac sighs while Jack shakes his head, mumbling something about designer names that Mac suspects are actually the names of characters from a daytime soap opera he had caught Jack watching once.</p><p>“Nick Corelli ain’t gonna be able to make me another one!”</p><p>“Yeah, well, maybe I can,” Mac humors him as he works to undress his lower half.</p><p>“Even you can’t make me a shirt outta duct tape and purple dye, hoss.” </p><p>Mac steps over Jack to take his position in the shower, pulling Jack in from behind. He flounders at the downpour of water onto his face, and Mac’s heart pangs knowing that just weeks before Jack had nearly gotten waterboarded during a sideways mission, something that he must not have been entirely over as he roars in defiance. The swings in Jack’s mood are as dizzy to Mac as they are to Jack, his movements slow and exaggerated, but still strong and forceful. Wrangling a bull.</p><p>“It--itches!” Jack whines as his pawing and prying of getting Mac’s fingers off of him turns into rapid scratching of his entire body.</p><p>“I know, buddy, I know,” Mac starts to lather Jack up with soap, roughly scrubbing the dried liquid that had seeped through the fabric of his shirt and stained his skin as red as the wine. Jack’s beefy arms and legs are no match for the slyness of Mac’s slimmer, lankier frame that is able to wash Jack down in just a few minutes, with only two escape attempts on the brute’s behalf that are cut short when Mac slips and falls into the shower, and in guilt, Jack returns to him, swearing, “I won’t try it again, I promise!”</p><p>He’s about to make a third escape attempt when Mac literally throws in the towel to his friend, and shuts off the water. </p><p>“There! Done!” Mac exclaims breathlessly while they both get to their feet, which is a struggle in the shower stall meant for only one occupant. “You feeling any better?”</p><p>As Jack shakes his entire body like a wet dog, adding a few warm droplets to Mac’s shaking cold, wet body, his head continues to shake even after the excess water is off of his body. He hunches over, hands on his wobbling knees.</p><p>“I...I think there was somethin’ funky when I ate Nemo and his friends,” he admits, and one knee bends, one of his palms breaks his fall.</p><p>“What?” Mac bends down to get a look into Jack’s face, considers turning the water back on to wash out the green that is about to expel from Jack’s body.</p><p>“Dory’s gonna kill me when she finds out. Then again, Dory might not even remember this...I might not...remember...this…” Jack’s other palm meets the tile, before his body collapses entirely onto the floor, half of his face squished flat against the drain, something foul and wet pooling around his mouth with the remaining shower water. Mac instinctively rolls him onto his back, away from the drain before he washes down into it. </p><p>“Jack? Jack!” Mac shouts, gently patting Jack’s <em> ultra- </em>pale cheek before he pulls his phone out, and makes the phone call he should have made in the first place. </p><hr/><p>His body feels numb in its heavy weight. He has a sharp throbbing in his head, his throat, his chest, his heart that speaks to him that mistakes were made. Oh, how <em> mistakes were made. </em></p><p>Everything is a blur, he remembers sliding onto the floor of Mac’s kitchen, propelling himself from the counter to the island in a slide that he wishes had gotten caught on camera. He remembers the spilling of wine, as bottles are shot and glass rains down like a shower. Remembers a tiny little leprechaun that looked a hell of a lot like Mac goading him to <em> “come outside, come onto the deck!” </em>Remembers seeing Murdoc threatening to seize the Mac-prechaun out of the air and throttle him with gloved hands. </p><p>He also remembers getting stripped and tortured in a sobering shower, the burning water drops itching at his skin like a million fire ants. </p><p>“Mmm…Yup. Worst. Hangover. Ever,” he groans as his eyelids lighten, but not fully enough for his eyes to open. </p><p>“You’re not hungover, Jack,” Mac’s voice echoes. </p><p>“Hm? Mac? That you?” </p><p>“Yeah. It’s me,” Mac glumly responds in the void.</p><p>“Where are we?”</p><p>“Hospital.”</p><p>“Hospital. Good.”</p><p>Mac snorts.</p><p>“What’s so funny?”</p><p>“You weren’t so keen on coming here a few hours ago…”</p><p>“Wasn’t? Well, ‘course not, getting a little wine drunk ain’t nothing to call 9-1-1 about…”</p><p>“You weren’t<em> drunk, </em>Jack. Doctors think it was mercury poisoning.”</p><p>“Mercury? Like the planet?”</p><p>“No--Like the--the stuff in thermometers.”</p><p>“Oh! Like the stuff in the Mad Hatter’s hat.” </p><p>“I...think you’re thinking of lead? Which was not the case, and of Mad Hatter’s <em> disease </em> , which is caused by <em> mercury poisoning,” </em> Mac’s voice rises and slows in clarity.</p><p>“Okay, okay, I getcha, <em> Alice,” </em>Jack groans. He tries again to open his eyes, but it’s as if he’s trying to push a brick wall.</p><p>“I knew it. I knew something was going to happen,” Mac mutters.</p><p>“How’s that?” </p><p>“Tonight was too...<em> perfect </em>not to go wrong.”</p><p>“You ever get something to eat? Cause I’m usually the superstitious one here, Mac. Doesn’t look as good on you as it does on me.”</p><p>“Neither does a purple shirt,” Mac quips back, and the very thought causes Jack’s eyes to snap open, and see Mac sitting by his bedside, dressed in the same light blue shirt, now wrinkled as it had dried after getting soaked in the shower. The colors pop and fade and waver around for a few seconds before Jack blinks a few times, focusing not on as much of his attention to his dressing as he does to the dark circles bogging down Mac’s glimmering eyes.</p><p>“Aw, Mac, this isn’t a good look on you either, bud. Quit your worrying, I’m alright,” he softly whispers as he reaches for Mac’s clasped hands. </p><p>“I know,” Mac sniffles. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Sorry? What’re you sorry for? I’m the one who should be sorry, getting that big brain of yours all frizzle-frazzled!” </p><p>“It’s okay. <em> We’re </em>okay, and that’s all that matters, right?” Mac nods, an eyebrow cocked in questioning for more than just an answer, but for reassurance. </p><p>“That it is,” Jack nods sternly, he puts his palm on top of the ball of Mac’s hands, shakes it gently. “Listen well, you do, young padawan.”</p><p>Mac releases his hands with a breathless laugh, placing a twisted paperclip into Jack’s palm as their fingers brush together. Jack smiles as he holds the art between them, the unfurled paperclip bent into the shape of the Mad Hatter’s hat.</p>
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